*Sniff* they all grown up? GP32, Wiz, etc!

[skeezix]

Wait wot - GP32 is 24 years old? GP2x is 19 and old enough to drink?!
The Wiz 15?!! .... Caanoo 14! .. couldn't believe its a day over 10!

Was just pawing through my old dev kits and gear, figured I needed to pull out good ol Caanoo or GP2x and give 'em a good whirl when I go on a cottage trip in the middle of nowhere (who needs buy a $50 modern Android based little guy or a r-pi or the like) and realized the ages of this family.

While Gamepark doesn't really exist anymore per se, these gadgets still live on.

Anyone still digging out these old units, or they all left in a box in your attic?

OF COURSE the Pandora (and Pyra for the lucky few) and the gold standard, but those are precious.. I don't mind carrying a Wiz around as its nice and tiny and well, somehow less precious to me.

jeff

PS - Heyhey to my many old friends here .. hard to believe I was here for hours every day for 10 years or more, and then had twins and had to dropped off the earth (right before Pyra started winding up) for a couple years.

 

[matzesu]

Yep its quite weyrd, im part of this community (or the German Gp2X Board) since the Wiz was about to release, even though i never had an GPH Device, i came to the Pandora because i saw on German Gaming TV Giga (back then bevor they where closed by Sky) an Show about Homebrew Handhelds where EvilDragon was as Guest.. back then he had an GP32 and an GP2X whit,
i was on quest for an solution to play my old Gameboy Games because i did mistakly buy the wrong GBA back then (GBA Micro instead of GBASP) , 4 AA Batteries for the Gameboy where expensive and its Screen not that watchable.. and an Device that can run Gameboy Games through Emulation was quite exactly what i was looking for..

Also i had a shitty Postal Service Job back then i did lost after a few weeks, so i wanted to spend this money out of disapointment on something..

So i did a quick search for the GP2X Shop, found the German Forum, and found out about this Tiny Linux Notebook Thing called Pandora and preeordered it, ..

Sadly i did ever believe in 2 Months (tm) so i though when i would buy also an Wiz or Cannoo, this would not last for long ..
So i did not got an GPH Device .. but bough a few other things whyle i did wait, like an used GBA SP ..

Who knows? Might be if i had spend the Shitty Job Money back then on an GBA SP instead, i would not had got an Pandora..

 

[ElPoco]

I don't have any GP device, I have a Tapwave Zodiac but it's broken (or bricked, I'm not sure). I still have my Pandora, I'll try to get its LCD cable repaired/replaced next week. The left nub stopped working properly a few years ago and the the right nub isn't working very well either but the rest (including the battery) is still working perfectly and I still have a long list of games I intend to play with it.

 

[skeezix]

yeah the nubs seemed to have endurance issues .. maybe it depended on which run? I'm sure ED or folks woudl be able to comment on which parts might be still available, maybe a quick solder for those, don't remember
.. I'm actrually pretty amazed, the Pandora batteries seem to have held up pretty well. Most batteries of their age are super dead by now, even not using up their cycle count. *shrug*

Theres still a bit of a Palm community, so you might be able to find some advice for Zodiac; whats dead about it? FWIW, one of the famous issues with that device were PCB solder joints being pretty proud, and a metal case, so commonly the middle of the pcb woudl touch the back panel of the case, so when in your pocket or squeezing at all, they'd short out; that tended to cause a lot of mayhem. But if the case is at all bent in the back middle, it coudl be perma-shorted and appear bricked. (A common fix back in the day was to run some thin paper, or thermal dissipative tape (like kapton tape), to provide physical blockage to the short (or touch up and reduce the joints.) .. but of course, it coudl be a zillion things.

 

[ElPoco]

If I remember correctly, my Zodiac would start, display the splash screen and then freeze with white noise in the speakers. But to be honest I don't have any use for it now.

For the Pandora nubs, they were custom-made with some internal firmware for calibration and they are no longer available. I don't know if there could be any off-the-shelf replacements.

 

[Askarus]

yeah the nubs seemed to have endurance issues .. maybe it depended on which run? I'm sure ED or folks woudl be able to comment on which parts might be still available, maybe a quick solder for those, don't remember
.. I'm actrually pretty amazed, the Pandora batteries seem to have held up pretty well. Most batteries of their age are super dead by now, even not using up their cycle count. *shrug*

Theres still a bit of a Palm community, so you might be able to find some advice for Zodiac; whats dead about it? FWIW, one of the famous issues with that device were PCB solder joints being pretty proud, and a metal case, so commonly the middle of the pcb woudl touch the back panel of the case, so when in your pocket or squeezing at all, they'd short out; that tended to cause a lot of mayhem. But if the case is at all bent in the back middle, it coudl be perma-shorted and appear bricked. (A common fix back in the day was to run some thin paper, or thermal dissipative tape (like kapton tape), to provide physical blockage to the short (or touch up and reduce the joints.) .. but of course, it coudl be a zillion things.

Nubs: They are a weak point. Unfortunately we do not have new ones any more to offer replacements.
Try to get in some Isopropanol/Alcohol/Contact spray and wiggle them. Maybe that helps.

Battery:
The Pandora has the best battery I have ever seen. During all the time I worked at the Pandora there were maybe 20 batteries that were faulty.
Most of them were first batch or dead on arrival. I can not recall a single custoer to RMA a battery.
Mine are perfectly fine until this day and I used my Pandora every day for many year.

The Manufacturer of the Pyra's battery is the same btw. The battery is the best part of the Pyra and I expect it to live forever.

 

[skeezix]

My Pandora batteries are still in pretty good shape; I've got a few of them spreading the load, but the damned things seem today almost a good as they were all those years ago; super impressive.

 

[Askarus]

Yeah, that company seems to be quite sensitive about not increasung the power density of those batteries to a level that hurts them.
Many manufacturers make bad batteries just to get those 10% or 20% more Wh into them.
Makes them ook nice on paper but die quickly.

From what I can tell, GPD also has a good battery supplier now who cares about battery longlivety.

 

[elw3]

Who actually made these batteries?
And do they have batteries for common customers or do they only produce for companies?

 

[skeezix]

Waaaaait; if some of these devices are 15 and even 20+ years old, they in their own rite are retro consoles; Yo dawg, retro consoles playin' retro consoles

 

[Askarus]

Waaaaait; if some of these devices are 15 and even 20+ years old, they in their own rite are retro consoles; Yo dawg, retro consoles playin' retro consoles

I wonder how many console emulation generations we could chain.
Like GPD -> Switch -> Wii -> GBA -> NES
Something like that maybe.

 

[skeezix]

Wild first guess:
Modern PC -> SteamDeck -> Phone (Android or others) -> Switch -> PC (dosbox or better) -> Amiga -> GBA -> SNES -> NES

 

[TrashyMG]

Wish I got into the older handhelds before the Pandora, but I guess I came in at the right time for that. Still gets a lot of use and batteries are in good condition.

 

[Linux-SWAT]

I use the Wiz from time to time (mame/megadrive), but it's been ages since I've last used the GP2X.

 

[netcat]

About once a year I charge & boot my zaurus c860, just to make sure it still works. I'll fire up snes9x for a second, just to be sure. It's a perfectly preserved old-skool linux system, customized up the wazoo of course. Makes me feel warm & fuzzy.

 

[skeezix]

I use the Wiz from time to time (mame/megadrive), but it's been ages since I've last used the GP2X.

That one is a bit rougher .. since its only 200MHz iirc, it can do the job but struggles; the Wiz and Caanoo performed much stronger. I still think the PSP and Vita make pretty good pocket emu systems, but these days when you can get a quad core 1.5 ghz machine for $50 off ebay or ali, its pretty weird :O

Post automatically merged: Jun 10, 2024

About once a year I charge & boot my zaurus c860, just to make sure it still works. I'll fire up snes9x for a second, just to be sure. It's a perfectly preserved old-skool linux system, customized up the wazoo of course. Makes me feel warm & fuzzy.

oh man, I totally forgot about that line of machines; I really wanted a couple models of those

 

[b_o_b]

Anyone still digging out these old units, or they all left in a box in your attic?

Pandora is still my main handheld. Sometimes still pick up my GP2X though for some old savestates / high scores on OutcaST Loved the internal games database feature.

 

[skeezix]

Everyone once in awhile I see a new youtube video pops up about OutcaST; recently someone did a port of an earlier build to the Firebee (FPGA 'new' Atari machine), with some virtualization of the CPU (!), so I want to dig out a more recent codebase and send it over..

Our goal in emulation to preserve for history has succeeded